Tucked within the historic Redcliffe district of Bristol, Redcliffe Sixth Form Centre forms part of St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, a Church of England voluntary aided secondary school that educates around 1,600 students between the ages of 11 and 18. The school is commonly known by shortened names – St Mary Redcliffe, Redcliffe, or simply SMRT – and its associated parish church is the medieval St Mary Redcliffe Church, one of the most recognisable landmarks in the city. The current school came into being in 1966 through the merger of two older institutions: St Mary Redcliffe Secondary School and Temple Colston School. The headteacher is Del Planter, with Rob Shaw leading the Sixth Form.
A School With Centuries of History Behind It
The origins of the school stretch back to Elizabethan England. On 30 June 1571, Queen Elizabeth I granted a Royal charter establishing what was then called Queen Elizabeth’s Free Grammar and Writing School. The charter gave the parishioners of St Mary Redcliffe Church the right to use the building of the Chapel of the Holy Ghost – a structure that had previously belonged to the Hospital of St John the Baptist before being seized by the Crown during the dissolution of the monasteries. The building, measuring 56 feet by 26 feet and positioned near the south porch of the churchyard, was set up to accommodate one master and one under-master, overseen by twelve governors, with a stated purpose of educating boys in grammar and learning. In 1627, the school received an endowment from John Whitson. By the 1760s, the original building was demolished – it was considered to obstruct the view of the church – and with the agreement of the Bishop of Bristol, Thomas Newton, the school relocated into the Lady Chapel at the east end of the church. A record from 1839 noted that the school possessed a statue of Elizabeth I, its founding monarch.
Periods of Decline and the Temple Colston Connection
The school’s history was not without difficulty. An 1828 Charity Commission inspection found that the school had effectively ceased to function as intended, with no free scholars recorded since 1813 and no more than one private scholar at any point during that period. The commissioners concluded it had provided little benefit to the parish for over thirty years and called for it to be revived. The Taunton Report of 1864 found matters had worsened further, describing the Grammar School as having ceased to have any visible existence. The school’s endowments – from both the Church and from John Whitson – were accumulating without any school or master to receive them. The report suggested redirecting those funds to Bristol Grammar School. The other strand of the school’s heritage, Temple Colston School, had its own distinct origins. Colston’s Free School in Temple Street was founded in 1709 by Arthur Bedford, who was vicar of Temple Church. Two years later, in 1711, Edward Colston endowed the school with an annual fund of £80, designated for the education and clothing of forty boys from the parish. These two separate institutions eventually combined in 1966 to form the school that exists today.
The Sixth Form and the School’s Current Status
The Sixth Form Centre at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School sits within a broader institution that occupies a notable position in Bristol’s educational landscape. It is one of only two Church of England voluntary aided secondary schools in the Diocese of Bristol, the other being the Deanery CE Academy in Swindon. The school’s long association with St Mary Redcliffe Church continues to shape its character, and the Sixth Form provision under Rob Shaw offers post-16 education within that same tradition. For students and families in the Redcliffe area and across Bristol, the school represents a well-established educational pathway with roots going back more than four and a half centuries.